Traffic was re-routed through the SEA-ME-WE 3, but the reduced capacity has slowed transmission speeds significantly.

Because of the location of the outage, the UAE-based Etisalat's domestic operations were particularly hard-hit.

A repair ship sent to fix the damage has arrived at the scene, and should complete the job sometime between today and Thursday.

The service disruptions highlight how dependent the Middle East region still is on a small number of subsea cables, research firm TeleGeographysaid. And since all three take a similar route through the Mediterranean, they are at risk from the same environmental threats.

The cables are also filling up, with 85% of potential capacity on the routes taken.

But five new cables are scheduled to enter service between Europe and Egypt in 2010, helping to alleviate the problem, TeleGeography added. By the end of the year, SEA-ME-WE 4 will account for just 40% of lit capacity between Europe and the Middle East.